For purposes of the present application, a terminal, as used herein, refers to a machine which is designed to interface with a human operator for the communication of information between the machine and operator. The terminal includes equipment which is capable of receiving information from the human operator, providing or transmitting information to the human operator and in many cases processing information received by the human operator either at that time or at some prior time to provide information for transmission to the human operator. A typical example of a prior art terminal is a point of sale terminal used in retail applications, supermarkets, banks and the like. The various equipments included in a prior art terminal can be segregated on the basis of function. For example, terminals designed to receive information from a human operator may have one or more switches which can be manipulated by the operator for providing information to the terminal. In many cases the switches take the form of a keyboard, i.e. a numerical key pad, a full qwerty keyboard, a keyboard uniquely related to the particular terminal application (such as for example those found in fast-food restaurants and the like) and combinations or sub-combinations of the foregoing. Other types of inputs that can be accomplished via a terminal call for different equipment such as, for example, a magnetic stripe reader, a wand or other device for optical bar code reading, etc. Output functions can be implemented with cathode ray tubes, LED arrays, gas panel arrays or hard copy printers using a variety of conventional technologies.
The terminal also includes, or has available to it, additional equipment which provides it with some degree of "intelligence" to interpret its input and determine its output. Originally, many terminals shared common equipment for the purpose of providing "intelligence". More recently, it has become more and more typical to provide the "intelligence" in the form of terminal-based equipment. Even more recently, the "intelligence" in a terminal has been, at least partially, distributed throughout the terminal. As a result, each of the different input or output units (of the terminal) has associated with it its own intelligence at least for the purpose of responding to inputs and/or formatting outputs. In most cases, however, even where some of the "intelligence" is distributed, there is still a central controller with which the other input or output units communicate. As a result of this distribution of "intelligence", the various functional units become more and more self-contained. This has allowed the needs of a particular customer to be satisfied by manufacturing a series of compatible functional units which can be selected and assembled into a customized terminal for a particular application. This allows, for example, a keyboard to be located on the left, right or middle of a terminal, a particular type of display and/or printer to be selected and located according to the particular customer's needs. While the foregoing technique has reduced the number of different functional units that must be manufactured, prior to final assembly, we believe further improvement in a number of areas is possible.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the various units must be interconnected so as to allow for communication therebetween. For example, the central controller must be capable of responding to the various inputs, initially present at an input functional unit, and thus a communication path is required between the input units and the controller. In addition, for output purposes some communication path is necessary to communicate information to be output, to one of the output functional units. Present practice provides these communication path via a plurality of groups of conductors. For example, the communication path between a particular input unit and the central controller might be provided by a first wiring harness, a communication path between the central controller and an output unit would be provided by a different wiring harness. However, because the "run" from, for example a keyboard in one location to a central controller is different from the "run" from that keyboard in a different location to the central controller, different wiring harnesses must be manufactured and stocked to enable a terminal to be configured with the keyboard in either location.
Even though different terminals are made up out of a library of common functional units, stocking requirements are multiplied since the terminals for sale must be manufactured and stocked in a variety of configurations. For example, if a terminal with a customized keyboard is desired, then such customized terminal keyboards are desirably stocked, in addition to standard terminal keyboards, etc. It should be readily apparent that the different varieties of terminals require a large stock to satisfy different customer needs.
In addition, a customer, who for example had specified a terminal with a standard keyboard, may on receipt of the same discover that his needs require a customized terminal keyboard. This requires return of the terminal with the standard keyboard and shipping of the terminal with the customized keyboard.
We believe that maintenance problems can also be significantly reduced. With present practice, when a functional unit in a terminal fails, either service personnel must travel to the customer's location to repair the unit or the entire terminal (with its full complement of otherwise perfectly functioning units) must be returned for repair. Maintenance and service is also complicated by the extensive cabling which is susceptible to electromagnetic interference as well as multiplying the failure probabilities.
It is not at all unusual for customer requirements to change over time. In the past, if the customer had received a terminal of relatively limited capability, and his needs grew to the point where he required a terminal of more capability, his needs could only be met by purchasing a different piece of equipment.
Finally, the final assembly step, as presently practiced, results in tying up inordinate amounts of stock, by multiplying the stock requirements for the various functional units in order to provide terminals of varying configurations. This final assembly step is in addition, labor-intensive and thus very costly.
All of the problems noted above can be reduced in accordance with the present invention.